FORT WORTH, Texas — The hope that millions have been waiting for arrived at the Texas Health Resources central pharmacy in Arlington Tuesday with some dry ice inside some unassuming white boxes: vials of the brand new COVID-19 vaccine.
The 5,850 vaccine doses were the first to arrive in Tarrant County.
"We are already administering that vaccine to some of our employees," said Texas Health Resources CEO Barclay Berdan.
He said they began vaccinating shortly after receiving the vaccines. By late Tuesday afternoon, Berdan said about 40-45 employees had been vaccinated at their hospital in southwest Fort Worth.
In total, eight hospitals in Tarrant County were scheduled to receive vaccines this week, including Cook Children's Medical Center, JPS Hospital and Baylor Scott & White Hospital in Grapevine. Between 18,000 and 20,000 doses were expected at county hospitals this week, according to Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley.
"We have 16 different hospitals that we'll start the process up at tomorrow," Berdan said, "and we really hope we'll do over 5,000 vaccinations across all those hospitals over the next three days."
The vaccines couldn't come soon enough, as Tarrant County's public health director announced a somber milestone: nearly 1,000 people are hospitalized in the county with COVID-19. Officials said 215 of those patients are in the ICU. On Monday, Tarrant County reported more than 1,000 deaths from COVID-19.
"That means one in five COVID patients are seriously ill," said public health director Vinny Taneja. "They need ICU beds."
Berdan echoed that concern.
"We are seeing today the highest number of positive patents than we've ever had across our hospitals," he said. "I have over 750 positive patients, which is about a third of our beds."
THR will work now to quickly vaccinate those who care for those patients.
"I would suspect our frontline folks will number around 15,000, and to get everyone vaccinated over the coming months will be close to 24,000," Berdan said. It is not required for employees to be vaccinated, Berdan said.
It's a long process to end the pandemic, but on day one for Texas Health Resources, the word Berdan used was "thankful."
"Thankful that we can begin to provide relief to our communities."